Eat Slugs
by alloy-za
Summary: During the Battle of Hogwarts Ron & Hermione visit the Chamber Of Secrets and Hermione must face her darkest fears to destroy a Horcrux. A missing moment from Deathly Hallows


Eat Slugs (A missing moment from Deathly Hallows)

By alloy

Beta'd by Harrysmom

Harry rushes off, without a plan and only half an idea of where to begin. Before I can follow Ron grabs my arm.

"Hermione wait. What good is it to find a Horcrux if we can't destroy it?"

Ron's right of course, it's something that's been bothering me since Griphook claimed the sword of Gryffindor and with Voldemort on his way to Hogwarts we weren't going to have any time for another solution to fall into our laps.

"I think…maybe… I might know another way to destroy them."

I bite my tongue. Ron's ever eager to offer silly ideas, but the important ones, the ones that really make sense he dawdles over, as if his subconscious can't bear the idea of him making a meaningful contribution. It took him ages to articulate his idea for Dumbledore's army and he made me present it to Harry. To this day most everyone still thinks it was my idea.

I nod in encouragement.

"Harry used the basilisk fang to destroy the first Horcrux, the diary I mean, Tom Riddle's diary."

"But the basilisk's dead Ron, surely the venom wouldn't still…"

"It's a magical creature Hermione," he says as a matter of fact. "Its venom will always be deadly."

It's times like this that remind me of the chasm that lies between Ron and me. Despite all the spells I know, all the magic I've performed and all the magical creatures I've seen, I still see the natural world in the way a muggle sees it. In the muggle world, snake venom, no matter how potent, would begin to decay along with the animal.

Ron sees it differently, Ron's world is inherently magical, Ron is inherently magical, but I won't tell him that, least it goes to his head. The result of this world-view is Ron's belief that the basilisk fangs will retain their potency. In Ron's world, belief is often better than knowing and I believe in Ron.

"That's brilliant Ron!"

"Always the tone of surprise," comes his self-effacing reply.

There's no more need for talking, as thought becomes deed. Ron holds out his hand and my feet hardly touch the ground as he drags me to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. He barely pauses, points his wand at the basins and shouts "Bombasto".

The bathroom erupts with shards of porcelain, plumbing, water and one irate ghost.

"Sorry Myrtle" Ron shouts, almost gleefully and then he pauses. "Bugger!"

"What is it?"

"We need a way to get back up, a rope or something. Fawkes flew us up last time."

Then he gives me his, 'I want to borrow your homework' grin and asks, "What's in your bag of tricks?"

I mentally rummage through our possessions. "No rope," I say. "But maybe something better."

Eyes firmly on his face I reach into my bag and begin to withdraw one of his prized possessions. I'm rewarded with the look of utter adoration when I hold out his Cleansweep Eleven. I'm not sure if it's meant for the broom or me.

"You're absolutely brilliant!" he exclaims. "What would I do without you?"

"If I was so brilliant I would have remembered we had broomsticks when we were hanging onto that bloody dragon."

Ron commands the broom to hover and hold out his hand to me. "Still remember how?" he asks.

Of course I remember. The flying lessons he insisted on giving me prior to Harry's birthday had started out as a chore and ended up a cherished memory.

I climb onto the broom behind him, clasp my arms around his waist and rest my head on his back so I can hear the steady reassuring beat of his heart. Unwittingly my hands find a gash in his shirt and my finger burn where they touch the bare skin of his stomach.

Ron makes no mention of it and I close my eyes and draw a deep breath.

He smells of soot and brimstone, blood and stale sweat, in short, wonderful.

I don't see and hardly feel the movement of the broom until it stops, and we've been hovering for a moment then I hear a bizarre hissing sound. It stops abruptly and I feel Ron clearing his throat.

The hissing returns as I open my eyes. Before us is a door that will most certainly resist "Bombasto".

"Come on Weasley." He murmurs.

"Weasley is my king," I whisper in encouragement.

He tries again, a noise from deep inside his diaphragm, noise that raises the hairs on the back of my neck before he breaks off coughing.

"Almost there," I say.

The next sound chills me to the bone, it raises unbidden memories of Godric Hollow, of Nagini and I shiver involuntarily as the chamber door begins to clank open.

"Good thing Harry talks in his sleep."

"I wouldn't know."

I feel rather than hear his chuckle as he carefully glides us into the chamber.

"There," I point out the desiccated skull of the basilisk. "Goodness Ron it was huge. How did Harry kill this thing?"

"Luck and Gryffindor courage," he replies as he sets us down next to the dead monster. "And whole lot of stubbornness."

He begins, gingerly at first and then with growing confidence, to pull fangs from the basilisk's mouth.

"Careful!" he says, and I can see why. Venom oozes from the fangs as if the creature were still alive.

"Not too many, otherwise we'll never be able to carry them."

"Right."

"I think we should destroy Hufflepuff's cup right away." I say, summoning the cup from my bag. I take up a Basilisk fang, raise my arm…

"Hermione," His whisper halts me. "It'll fight you back. It'll show you things…horrible things… your fears, like a Boggart only much, much worse."

He holds out his hand. "I'll do this for you."

Harry told me, after Ron had destroyed the locket, that he thought it was the hardest thing that Ron had ever done. At first I thought he was just trying to intercede on Ron's behalf, but when I saw the haunted look in Harry's eyes I knew something terrible must have happened, something Harry refused to tell me. Something Ron was willing to go through again to protect me from harm. I couldn't allow that.

"I have to do this Ron."

"Hermione, it… it showed me what I wanted most in all the world, said it was impossible that it…let me do this for you."

"No Ron."

"My worst fear Hermione, isn't spiders any more…my worst fear, my very worst is that, that you could never want me, the way I want you." he turns away to hide his blush. "I hope that helps you."

"Thank you."

"Do it now!"

I fall to my knees and raise my arm and as I do the cup begins to fill with a dark liquid, which comes bubbling amorphous mass spewing into the air.

I cannot move my arm, it is somehow being held up by some force greater than I can bring to bear. Voices begin to emanate from the blackness and figures from my childhood begin to appear.

"A strange child."

"Bizarre happenings."

"A freak! A freak!"

"I won't be friends with a freak!"

"She's different you know?"

"I'm a witch!" I say in reply. "Of course I'm different. I'm going to Hogwarts."

Shapes change and a horrid little boy in an unbroken voice says:

"_Nightmare, absolute nightmare! No wonder she hasn't any friends."_

The man looks contrite and through the haze I notice his arm moving in a familiar motion….

Swish….

And…

Flick!

"Wingardium Leviosa." A simple spell which both saved my life and forever changed it. I fill my mind with my friends, with Ron and Harry, Ginny, Neville, the twins even Luna and Hagrid.

The force holding my arm begins to weaken.

"Filthy Mudblood!" The boy Ron says, "How dare you touch me!"

How dare it use Ron's face and voice, how dare it!

I dismiss the Draco Ron with "Eat Slugs!"

"Muggleborn, with mad hair and buck teeth, how could anyone want you? 'Won Won' wants someone with a bit of body, someone to snog, someone who wants to snog," says Lavender Brown. "Won Won is my boyfriend. Mine! I claim him."

"I'm not afraid of that anymore."

Lavender disappears with a poof and Tom Riddle appears, not the vile boy that tried to enslave Ginny Weasley, nor the undead creature resurrected in a graveyard but the young man seeking immortality that made this horcrux.

"Clever mudblood, you might destroy me, but am not alone, I am myself legion, I am…"

I bring the fang down upon the cup. "Oh shut-up Tom!" I shout and the ranting becomes a scream as Tom Riddle fades from existence.

"Hermione! You were brilliant!" Ron, the real Ron, kneels beside me. "The cleverest, most brilliant, most beautiful witch in the world." Then, in his jubilation, almost by mistake he kisses me. Almost by mistake, but before he can pull away I wrap my arms around him and kiss him back.

His arms surround me like they never have before and seven years of pent up tension release in that single kiss, like magic.

"My…." He pauses as if waiting for an objection. "My girlfriend just told Voldemort to shut-up! Brilliant."

"You won that battle Ron, before it started, knowing…your fear. There was nothing it could scare me with, nothing that you hadn't already beaten."

"Like 'Eat slugs!'"

"Exactly like 'Eat Slugs!'"

Ron grins and then sighs. "We'd better get back then Hermione, I'd rather stay here and snog, but if Harry's found another Horcrux we need it to eat slugs don't we?"

"Absolutely Ron."

Together now we climb to our feet, carefully we gather up the cup and the basilisk fangs.

I climb behind Ron on his broomstick, feel his rapidly beating heart and inhale deeply.

My boyfriend smells of soot and brimstone, blood and stale sweat.

Wonderful.

Fin

Authors note: Thanks to Harrysmom for Beta'ring.

For those of you that want Ron's point of view I can recommend "Realization" by Harrysmom (.net/s/7380355/1/Realization#)


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